Snowden on the NSA: 'They're setting fire to the future of the internet'

Twitter

Snowden on the NSA: 'They're setting fire to the future of the internet'
(Image credit: Twitter)

Beaming in via a livestream from Russia, Edward Snowden made a rare public appearance at the South By Southwest Interactive festival. He didn't mince any words: During the hour-long chat hosted in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union, the former National Security Agency employee-turned-leaker told attendees they are "firefighters" against the government's surveillance state and warned about its future.

Per Yahoo, Snowden said the NSA is "setting fire to the future of the internet" and that the "result has been an adversarial internet." He added that the NSA's surveillance state is "nothing we asked for, it's not something we wanted." Head on over to Yahoo to read a complete wrap-up.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.